Printable Christmas presents 2012: best instant gifts for the very last minute

It’s not too late to buy your Christmas presents for 2012 - and without having to take on the madness of the last minute Christmas shopping scrums in your local town/shopping centre either. Yes, this is the Printable Christmas Present list at Pocket-lint and we guarantee you that you can find an instant Christmas present here on these pages right up to and including the day itself. No trip to the local garage required.

Simply print off our Christmas Card templates below (any paper will do), clip them to one another, then click through on your chosen gift idea, purchase and print out the voucher or certificate, put them all together in an envelope, chuck it under the tree and Bob’s your uncle.

For Him

For want of a better way of splitting these up, we’ve gone for a simple case of the sexes. Naturally, the items that appear here will not appeal exclusively to men.

A year’s supply of sausages, from £10
You don’t have to blow £120 on a year’s supply of sausages from sausage connoisseurs The Grand Old Duke of Pork but it’s a very nice idea. Sign up through PayPal to the tune of £9.99 for 30 days and you’ll get two packs of gourmet meat fingers sent to you on the second and fourth weeks of each month. You can always opt for a simple gift token for TGODOP, if you prefer.

Carving course, up to £155
There’s an old art of hacking the turkey to pieces and chucking the meat gravel on to people’s plates at Christmas dinner and then there’s the even more ancient skill of being able to carve properly. Sending your dad, man or buddy on a carving course is not only printable but also nicely themed with the seasonal goings on. There are plenty of courses out there but, if you want to do things in style, it’s over to the London hotels with Simpson's in the Strand the king of the roast.

Go Ape, vouchers from £5Go Ape is the UK’s favourite forest adventure day and, yes, you can buy gift certificates by email for it. There are centres all round the country and it’s all about getting up into the trees, climbing rope ladders, swinging on vines and traversing wobbly bridges. There’s probably a good deal of bonding involved too and probably some beer afterwards. Speaking of which...

Membership to a beer club, from £40
Could there be any greater man gift than the gift of beer? Perhaps only the gift of beer and naked women. Sadly, that latter experience does not exist but the former does in the shape of a beer club subscription. There’s plenty to choose from including the Beer Hawk society which plop a crate of 12 bottles on your doorstep each month.

For Her

Likewise, all the gifts here are not just things that will appeal to women. More to the point, of course, women’s interest are far broader than these genres. Disclaimer accepted yet?

Beach horse riding, from £25
It doesn’t have to be the beach but there’s something romantic about splashing through the shallows on your horse; the smell of the sea, the thump of the hooves, the 99 with flake, etc. As usual, there are plenty of companies to choose from in both the UK and abroad. For our money, we’d go with Kimmerston Riding Centre and get yourself to Holy Island Beach in Northumberland - some of the best beach riding in the UK, so we’re told. You can book a riding holiday or just grab some gift vouchers.

Year’s supply of beauty productsGlossybox and many other sites in the UK, offer a monthly delivery of beauty product miniatures to your door. You need to create a profile of your giftee so that the company has some idea of the kinds of things to send, then choose the length of package - 3, 6 or 12 months - and away you go. It’s the gift that keeps on giving - well, until you need to renew your subscription, that is.

Sexy underwear, from £25
It’s a classic but for a very good reason. Nonetheless, good underwear can be a tricky one to buy for someone else. Even beyond getting the size right, there’s issues of cut, style, underwiring and all sorts of things that the recipient or won’t wear. So, remove the mutual disappointment from the equation and pick up some e-vouchers instead. Going with Agent Provocateur should guarantee a certain sort of outcome but, if you want to include a few more brands, try Figleaves too.

Spa gifts, from £10
You simply can’t go wrong with a bit of pampering. Head over to Wahanda which specialises in this market. There are mob deals each day, local spa days and just plain old gift vouchers if you’d rather let your giftee do the leg work instead.

For Both

Finally, these are the instant gifts that are entirely unisex. These are they.

Afternoon Tea, around £35pp
If you haven’t had afternoon tea at a posh hotel, then you simply must. Don’t get suckered in by the Ritz and don’t necessarily go for the champagne version either. The top tea ticket in town at the moment is the Thames Foyer at the recently refurbished Savoy Hotel but we rather enjoyed a fireside afternoon at Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair where it’s an all-you-can-eat extravaganza for 90 minutes.

Sushi class, from £120
There’s a world of cookery courses and classes out there to buy as gifts and the best ideas is to pick the one that matches the palate of your giftee. We’ve chosen to go Japanese and the best one in town is the Hashi school in Wimbledon which does sushi, sashimi, dumplings at all sorts of levels and abilities. If you’re on a budget, try Yo! Sushi's school instead.

Photography Lessons, vouchers from £5
Everyone’s a photographer these days, so this is a gift that just about anyone would appreciate. Photography lessons come in all shapes and sizes. Just make sure you pick something that addresses the ideas of framing and use of light, and it might be nice to opt for one with a tour rather than something that’s a purely classroom affair. Naturally, it all rather depends where the recipient lives. There’s the London At Dawn class or courses at the London School of Photography but the real fun is to be had when you visit the Wilderness Scotland website or Andy Davies where adventure awaits.

App subscription: Spotify, Netflix, Lovefilm, etc
Unlimited access to music and movies for a year or more is a wonderful gift. This is probably going to work a bit better if the person you’re buying for is an iPad or iPhone users but there’s still joy to be had on Android too. Most app subscription services have a gift section (check out their websites) and you’ll find e-vouchers available if a full year is too much to pay.

Amazon Vouchers
Probably the new version of record tokens, the very last resort if you really can’t think of anything is going to be some credit at the superstore that is Amazon. You can email out gift cards with any value from a penny to a grand.